Accessibility Statement and Land Acknowledgement/Statement

We want to share this important information with you:

Accessibility Statement

We value accessibility for participants attending the conference. 

Every conference session and event will be equipped for participants to easily enable live closed captioning on their screens. The closed captioning and chat functions both have the capability to increase the font size, making the text easier to read.  

If you have any trouble utilizing the closed captioning within Zoom itself, or if you find yourself in a breakout room that does not have the closed captioning available, there are also a number of 3rd party websites and apps that can help, including, but not limited to:

(NOTE: These platforms not owned or managed by Zoom or the NADTA, so we will not be able to provide troubleshooting support for these platforms.)

Several of our all-conference events will also have support from live ASL interpreters.

We are encouraging presenters to use larger fonts, contrasting colors, and alternative text descriptions if they are using written materials in their presentations.  

Further accommodations may be requested by contacting the NADTA Office or by phone (518) 694-5363. Our Office Administrator will work one on one with individuals to personalize accommodations to meet their needs while maintaining their privacy and confidentiality.

Land Acknowledgement/Statement

The #NADTA2021 Conference was originally planned to take place with an in-person gathering in Niagara Falls, NY (USA), which is the land of multiple Iroquois-speaking Nations, including the Haudenosaunee and the Attawandaron people. 

Having transitioned into a virtual format for our gathering, we acknowledge that we now are coming together as we sit on a multitude of different lands and waterways that were originally inhabited and cared for by Indigenous and First Nations people.

We recognize that our being able to gather together virtually is a privilege that does not come without a history of colonization, and that our individual and collective actions today may promulgate or contribute to these narratives, as socio-economic disparities, and individual and collective trauma disproportionately affect Indigenous communities every day.  We have seen this particularly with COVID-19, which has ravaged First Nations and Indigenous communities, and with the recent discoveries of thousands of unmarked graves from former Residential Schools across the US and Canada.

We invite you to take a moment to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous people who are the original protectors and caretakers of the land you currently inhabit. If you don’t know the history and the Indigenous people of the place you are in, we encourage you to begin your research by visiting Native Land Digital, downloading the Native Land app from the app store, or sending a text message to (907) 312-5085 to receive an automated message with the name of the Indigenous people of that place.

When our annual conferences are able to be held in-person, the NADTA has committed to making a donation to the Indigenous nation and people of that place as part of our land acknowledgement.  

In 2020 for our first ever virtual conference, we made our land acknowledgement donation to Native Land to help increase access to this important knowledge for all people, and we will again be making a donation to Native Land on behalf of the NADTA this year for #NADTA2021.  In addition, we are making a donation to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, a non-profit in Canada that provides services such as counseling, health services, and cultural support to Residential School survivors.

As we move through the conference events over the next few months, take a moment to learn more about the Indigenous people from your area and the legacies of resilience they have created over generations, and look for personal ways that you can support this resilience not only today, but in the future.